* Only a political decision could prevent Nicolás Maduro from starting his third term in power in Venezuela.
** Although the opposition has the records that prove the fraud, the legal avenues to invalidate the results of the National Electoral Council (CNE) are scarce.
Expediente Público / Special coverage from Caracas
Legal avenues to invalidate the results presented by the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) are possible. However, “the prospect of an appeal against Maduro’s reelection is almost nil,” the director of the organization Acceso a la Justicia, Alí Daniels, explained to Expediente Público.
According to Daniels, anyone who files an appeal against the tally sheets of CNE President Elvis Amoroso “may remain behind bars.”
The underlying problem, he said, is that Maduro needs certain international legitimation, “even if it is from his friends.”
“The government was not prepared for this scenario of having to present 20,000 tallies.”
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Nicolás Maduro will not concede
“The issue begins with the political and ends with the political. Here there is a political decision not to recognize the popular will and there has to be a decision from the international community saying you have to convince me if you won,” he said.
Nicolás Maduro announced on July 31 his willingness to go to the Supreme Tribunal to endorse his victory.
Daniels explained that one of the legal alternatives to rectify this situation, and prevent Venezuela from continuing to be immersed in uncertainty, is the jurisdictional route.
Supreme Justice Tribunal obedient to Chavismo
As it is a presidential election, the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Justice Tribunal would call to settle any controversy related to an inconsistency in the results.
In view of this, Daniels recalled that cases in which individuals win a lawsuit against an act of a state entity represent a percentage of less than 1%.
In addition, the magistrates of the different chambers of the Supreme Tribunal are mostly lawyers sympathetic to the ruling party.
Its president Caryslia Beatriz Rodríguez was elected councilor of the Libertador municipality in the 2018 elections, representing the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
Context: Step by step of electoral fraud in Venezuela
The director of Acceso a la Justicia recalled the content of a report by the United Nations (UN) Fact-Finding Mission, according to which the Venezuelan Judiciary not only lacks impartiality, but has often operated as part of the apparatus of political repression.
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Another alternative would be for the National Electoral Council itself to exercise a principle known as “self-protection” in administrative law, that is, spontaneous rectification. With this, the absolute nullity of the proclamation would be declared.
But that’s just the theory. In practice, Daniels said, “we would all fall backwards if that happened.”
Evidence of the opposition in Venezuela
On Tuesday, July 30, at night, the opposition Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) released the latest update with the count of the tally sheets, raised in the centers where the vote was held to elect the president of the Republic for the period 2025-2031.
The group led by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia presented to the country and the international community the sum of 81.2% of these tallies.
It was a slightly higher percentage than that used by the Electoral Power to issue the first results, after midnight on Sunday, July 28.
The results are totally divergent. After having computed 24,384 tallies with the results of the votes, the opposition command maintained that its candidate Edmundo González Urrutia (MUD-UNT-MPV) achieved 67% of the votes, while Maduro barely obtained 30%. A ratio of 2 to 1.
With less than 19% of the votes to be analyzed, Machado’s group maintains that this is an “irreversible trend,” alluding to the jargon that the ruling party used to use.
The Electoral Power, represented by its president Elvis Amoroso (a self-confessed militant of the regime’s party), indicated that they had taken into account 80% of the tally sheets to indicate that Maduro was reelected with 51.2% of the votes. In this relationship, Edmundo González would have obtained 44.2% of the votes.
Also: The Carter Center does not recognize Nicolás Maduro’s re-election
The lie of Nicolás Maduro’s regime
“The announced result does not correspond to the tally sheets issued by the machines,” said the director of the organization Súmate, Roberto Abdul, when consulted by Expediente Público. According to Abdul, the tallies must be delivered in the same record to witnesses from all the political parties participating in the electoral contest. These documents, issued by the voting machines once the process has been declared completed, must be signed by the representatives of each party.
This characteristic can be seen in the reproductions released by the opposition, to support its denunciations of massive fraud.
Abdul explained that “these tallies are transferred to the collection centers, where they are digitized. The information system, through the recognition of the QR (code), classifies and assigns the tallies to a table of a specific voting center.”
At midnight on Sunday, opposition leader María Corina Machado reported that, by then, they had only collected 40% of the tallies. Meanwhile, the ruling party had twice as much.
According to Abdul, this was due to “personal risks and limitations (for mobilization) late at night,” in a context that was already showing high conflict in the streets.
Also: Opposition claims to have minutes that ratify Edmundo González’s triumph in Venezuela
International rejection of Nicolás Maduro
The countries of the American community, with the exception of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Mexico, have expressed doubts about the neatness of the process.
The Bolivian government, a longtime ally of Chavismo, reported congratulating Maduro after the first result on a matter of “protocol.” They agree in requesting that the Electoral Power release “verifiable” results.
These reservations arise from the information issued by bodies specialized in the observation of electoral processes. One of them was the Carter Center.
“Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election did not conform to international parameters and standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic,” the institution said in a statement issued on the night of July 30.
Together with the group of experts of the United Nations, it was the only independent international entity invited by the Electoral Power. Other renowned groups in this area, such as the European Union Electoral Observation Mission, were not admitted by the Miraflores regime.
Repression against Venezuelans
By that time, the country was already convulsed by demonstrations in rejection of the announcement of Maduro’s re-election.
Data obtained by Expediente Público from security forces and non-governmental organizations indicate that, between Sunday night and Tuesday, at least 18 people died, many of them when they were shot by armed groups sympathetic to the ruling party. The actual number of injured cannot be determined precisely.
Also: Most Governments Denounce Fraud in Venezuela Elections
Doubts increase in light of what was pointed out by the Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation of the Organization of American States (OAS) in the Report on the presidential election in Venezuela.
The announcement of Maduro’s supposed victory, said this body, occurred «without providing the details of the polling stations processed, without publishing the official tally sheets and providing only the aggregate percentages of the votes received by the main political groups.”
The OAS noted that the numbers released by Amoroso had arithmetic errors and were far from resembling exit polls and other sampling conducted during voting by prestigious organizations.
Read: OAS demands Nicolás Maduro recognize defeat and call new elections
Despite all these questions, the highest authority of the Electoral Power rushed to proclaim Maduro as the winner of the contest. At the time of writing, it has not published the tally sheets in detail. Maduro filed an injunction with the Supreme Justice Tribunal to make a technical assessment of the electoral results. He assured that they are ready to present 100% of the tally sheets, but without specifying when.
